Bike Crash Follow-up

It's been eleven days since my bike crash. I figured I'd write an update on my experience since then.

The ER doctor was right that the worst was yet to come. My crash was on Thursday. Friday the pain started coming on, but Saturday and Sunday were the worst.

I couldn't recline at all. I spent the first three nights sleeping sitting straight up in a chair with pillows supporting me as much as possible. It wasn't quite as bad as it sounds and I did actually sleep, but it got old really fast.

The very worst part was sneezing. I sneezed exactly once each day (I remember!). The first time I did it with Audrey in the room it terrified her. There was Dad writhing in pain and unable to breathe. I think those sneezes might have been the absolute most painful thing I have ever felt.

By Monday morning I was feeling a little better and getting slightly more mobile. Sunday night I was able to sleep on my back until about 3am (then back to the chair) and that helped. I was dying to lie down.

I went to work Tuesday through Friday but I was on narcotic pain meds and was completely unproductive. In retrospect, I should have just called in sick all week.

I had a couple of little setbacks. Some days I would gain some range of motion in my arms (i.e. I could use them without too much pain) and that would lead me to do too much. I'd pay for that the next day with more pain.

I went to work today and actually did some work. Went to my doctor at the end of the day for a follow-up to make sure I'm not developing pneumonia - seems like I'm in the clear there. Today I sneezed twice - it's still really painful, but I recover in a minute or so now rather then 5 minutes. Audrey is used to it, too. This morning I sneezed while she was sitting next to me and she barely noticed the writhing.

The girls have been very sweet. They tell me every day that I must be getting better because my owies are smaller. Audrey tells me all the time that she's sorry I fell off my bike and got hurt. She forgot a couple of times and accidentally pulled my arm during the worst of it and then felt really bad. I've told her that I really look forward to being able to pick her up again.

I can now lie on my right side (the injury is on my left side) and on my stomach (for a while) and even on my back if I arrange the pillows to raise my shoulders a little.

I had taken two weeks off the bike after RAMROD on July 31. I had only ridden to work one day before the day of my crash (August 14). I can't see getting back on a bike for at least another week and probably longer. That means about 5-6 weeks of essentially no riding. That's the most contiguous time I've had off my bike in at least 10 years; perhaps as many as 13 years (I started mountain biking seriously in 1995). I'm going to lose a hell of a lot of fitness. C'est la vie. At least so far I've only gained 4 pounds.

Hitting the Pavement

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I had a little accident on my morning commute today. Don't click on the photo album links if you're squeamish.

Since I'll have to tell all my cycling friends about it anyway, I figured I'll just tell the story in a blog post.

On the uphill side of the low-level Spokane St. bridge (3 miles from home) I overtook my coworker Diane on her bike. I slowed and chatted with her to the crest of the bridge, where she told me to go ahead. So I sped up on the downhill side of the bridge. The bridge has a good separated bike path that cyclists use. The bike path then takes a circuitous route that was obviously not designed by someone who had ever ridden a bike since it goes way out of the way to circle under the bridge and then make several right angle turns to cross a couple of branches of an industrial road. Instead, fast riders ride straight at the intersection of the bottom of the bridge, sideways across a wheelchair curb cut and then continuing east on Spokane St. My buddy Jason and I do this every day on our commutes.

I may have been going a little faster today because it was gorgeous out and there were no vehicles around. Regardless, I somehow hit the transition from the sidewalk to the street wrong and lickity split I was going down. I remember tumbling and trying to just go with it. Then I remember what felt like endless pavement going by my eyes really fast. It felt like I would never stop sliding. I was probably going between 25 and 30mph when I crashed.

Obviously the sliding eventually stopped. I was pretty dazed and had the wind knocked out of me. But my first instinct was to get out of the middle of the intersection. I grabbed my bike and dragged it and myself over to the weedy area on the corner. It took a while before I could breathe and even then deep breaths caused stabbing pain.

My coworker Diane was not far behind me when I crashed and she witnessed the whole thing. She reports that I did a couple of "cartwheels". I suspect my front wheel dug into something and I went over the bars. She stopped, very concerned. I told her she should probably call an ambulance. I suspected I had a fairly serious chest injury - maybe broken ribs. My breathing was constricted by pain in the area of my lower rear left lung.

The fire department showed up quickly. The station is just at the west end of the bridge. They checked me out and put some simple dressings on the more obvious wounds. By then I figured I didn't need an ambulance. Diane and the fire crew waited while Carol arranged for the neighbors to watch the girls and came to take me to the hospital. That probably took about 25-30 minutes from the accident.

The ride in the car was kinda painful. Bumps gave me stabbing pains in the back of my lung. But we got to the ER at Swedish Hospital soon enough. I had great care from the ER doc and a technician and nurse. They took chest and elbow X-rays and a urine sample to make sure I didn't have kidney injury. The Tech (Brett, a cyclist who is riding RSVP - Ride Seattle to Vancouver and Party - tomorrow and was disconcerted by having two injured cyclists in the ER at the same time) did a great job cleaning out the deep laceration in my left elbow - it had bits of road embedded in it. They numbed it so I only felt tugging while he was doing it and no pain. Then the doc examined it again and decided not to suture it because it will need to be able to drain freely.

The X-rays showed no broken bones in my chest or elbow. And no kidney injury either.

The crash happened about 8:45. I got home from the ER at 12:40. Lots of waiting in the ER, as usual. Got to listen to a couple of patients with mental problems ranting about various things in adjacent treatment bays. Had a National Geographic that kept me occupied. Plus I used my camera phone to get some photos of the damage before it was treated. I didn't get the scoop on the other injured cyclist I saw walk into the lobby just as I was going back for treatment.

By the time I left the hospital the chest pain was getting worse. We dropped off the painkiller prescriptions at the pharmacy drive-through. It hurts to lie down, so Carol wrestled the glider from the living room downstairs to where the TV is. That's pretty comfortable for me. Carol will have to go back to pick up the prescriptions, but I had some big ibuprofens left over from when I got my dental implant so I took one of those. That made a big difference within about 20 minutes. The doctor tells me the pain is going to be a lot worse tonight and tomorrow and then start to improve, but at the moment I'm having a little pain holiday.

The firemen took my bike back to their station since we didn't have an easy way to carry it without the bike rack on the car. We have to go retrieve it later. I'll have to have it checked out thoroughly by a shop for damage. All I remember is the handlebars are cocked sideways and there is a scrape in the bar tape near the left brake hood.

By the way, I may have been the cause of my own accident. For years, there has been a "temporary" traffic sign post in a 55-gallon drum full of dirt that was positioned very close to the wheelchair ramp I was crossing when I crashed. It was annoying because one had to slow down to avoid it before riding off the sidewalk, and sometimes people would throw road debris in it (like pieces of lumber) that would stick out over the bike path. There hasn't been a sign on the post for ages - just an empty post in a barrel. A month or so ago I stopped on the way home and moved the barrel off into the weeds on the other side of the path. That cleared the way for a faster approach to the sidewalk/street transition. Perhaps I reaped what I sowed today. I'll be taking that transition with a lot more caution in the future. Unfortunately, it sounds like I'm going to be off my bike for a week or two. The doc says this chest injury can take a month or more to feel normal.

At the hospital, Carol noticed some black spots on my fingers. They were little embedded particles of asphalt (the place I crashed was repaved about two months ago). Inspired by having just seen Iron Man, I guess, Carol asked if any superheros were associated with asphalt. We decided I would be Asphalt Man. My superpower is my rough skin - I rub the villains vigorously and give them road rash.

I've been riding a road bike seriously for 10 years now, and commuting year-around for two and a half years. This is only my third spill (one was caused by a car). That doesn't seem like too bad of an average to me.

Birch Bay Vacation

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My parents have had time share vacation memberships for years. Last year we shared a week at Lake Chelan with them, where we go with the girls for the first half of the week, then they come and take the girls for the rest of the week and Carol and I can have a little break. This year they reserved a unit in a brand new facility at Birch Bay on the Washington coast very close to the Canadian border.

Carol and I and the girls drove up Thursday morning. The weather was great on Thursday and Friday. We had fun walking on the beach. Audrey kept asking to go to a playground, so we asked around and were referred to the Million Smiles Playground in nearby Lynden. We headed over there and were well rewarded. The playground was built in 2007 and is the best playground I have ever seen. The girls thought so, too.

Charlotte loves any playground that has "baby swings". She'll swing on a regular swing, but she prefers the security of the "bucket" seat.

The playground had a lot more for Audrey. It had monkey bars and rings that were the perfect height for her - when she was hanging her feet were only a few inches off the ground. That made all the difference and Audrey mastered several new skills at the park. She went hand over hand on both the monkey bars and the rings for the first time. She was very proud and would ask anyone she encountered to watch her perform her new tricks. She also went down a fireman's pole for the first time and loved it.

Her favorite part was a high tower with a sort of clubhouse on the top (with crooked windows). Inside the tower was a long spiral tube slide. And to get to the slide there are winding narrow steps inside the tower that are maze-like. The slide is pitch black most of the way. Audrey loved it. She must have gone up that tower and down that slide at least a hundred times in our three visits to the playground.

We also had a good time at Birch Bay State Park about a mile from our condo. There were a couple of large driftwood trees with root systems that the girls had a blast climbing on.

On Sunday afternoon my parents arrived and we were all there that night. Carol and I had an adventurous night with Charlotte being a little sick and both girls being disoriented when they woke up in the night and came across musical beds (my parents were in what had been Carol and my room, we were on the sofa bed). We didn't get much sleep but we had to laugh about the ridiculousness of it all.

Monday Carol and I packed up and left the girls with their grandparents. Aunt Betsy (my sister Elizabeth) was also going to join them Monday night. Carol and I headed for Vancouver, BC for the day. We hadn't been there in years, and we are friends with a couple who moved there from Seattle a few years ago so we wanted to visit them. We had a nice day sightseeing and then met Matt at his coffee shop for a couple of hours. The border crossing was uncomplicated and quick both directions which was a bonus. Before border security was increased one used to be able to drive into Canada and back with no hassle at all, but these days there is almost always a long wait at least coming back. We were lucky. And we had very little traffic all the way back to Seattle, where we stayed up until 2:00 AM watching the Olympics.

I had one more day of vacation scheduled today. I worked in the back yard preparing for the alley fence. Carol got a bunch of work done for the pre-school. It was so easy getting projects done when it was just us! Then at 4:00 we went to see Iron Man at the local cheap second-run movie house we can walk to from home. And now more Olympics. A very nice last day of a very enjoyable vacation. Back to work tomorrow, so I'd better not stay up until 2:00 AM tonight.

August Already?

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I know it's a cliche, but how the hell did it get to be mid-August already? Time just flies by these days. Someone once told me that time seems to pass faster as you get older because a year is a smaller percentage of one's life each year. Sounds like a good theory.

Oh well, at least we're having fun. The girls have been enjoying their new swing set and lawn. Audrey is the somersault queen, and Charlotte likes to run in the grass.

Some of the photos in this album were taken at the bike races at the Marymoor Park velodrome. We and several cycling friends met there on a Friday night for a picnic dinner. It was pretty fun. The kids watched the races for about 1 minute but enjoyed running around on the grass slopes on the back side of the banked turns.

While I was riding RAMROD, Carol brought the girls to Mt. Rainier and tried to find me as a surprise. That didn't happen, but she had a great time showing the girls the National Park and especially Cougar Rock campground where Carol had much childhood fun.

Audrey recently learned how to climb the metal whale tail at Whale Tail Park near our house. She saw some bigger kids doing it and figured it out. She's very proud. Charlotte has been doing some climbing of her own on the tots climbing wall at the same park.

Oh, Carol also had a little vacation. She flew to Fort Collins to visit her best friend Kim. The trip was planned around The Police and Elvis Costello concert at Red Rocks, which they both enjoyed greatly. I had lots of support from my parents and sisters caring for the girls so it was a lot easier than I expected being home "alone" with the girls. Carol definitely deserved the break. I ended up taking one days off and spending the whole day with the girls which increased my already huge respect for the difficulty of Carol's job. The girls did great, too, but they were ready for Mom to come home.

RAMROD 2008

Today was the 2008 edition of RAMROD: Ride Around Mt. Rainier in One Day. This is my third time riding RAMROD, having also ridden it in 2003 and 2005.

I wasn't sure how RAMROD would feel this year. I've gotten in plenty of miles by completing my now standard spring and early summer long rides (Inland Empire Century, 7 Hills of Kirkland, Flying Wheels, Tour de Blast and of course STP) plus a pretty good smattering of club rides. One thing I didn't do this year, however, was any special hill training. RAMROD has two huge climbs of 18 miles and 10 miles that supply the majority of the 10,000' of climbing along the entire 154-mile route. I had no idea how those climbs were going to feel, but I was expecting them to be a struggle.

We left Enumclaw at 6:33 AM with a group of 10. Most were Eastgate Cycling Club riders plus a few friends. The Eastgate riders were among the strongest climbers in the club. We had a very nice paceline going for the first 32 miles to Eatonville. I rode ahead since there is a small climb out of Eatonville and I knew I'd get dropped. That plan worked well since the group caught me exactly at the top of the climb. We then got together again for the ride into Elbe and on toward Ashford just before entering Mt. Rainier National Park.

The section between Elbe and the park entrance is 14 miles long and slightly uphill the entire way. We were doing a hell of a pace, with the stronger riders pulling at 21-22mph. I was starting to have trouble hanging on even in the draft, and the section ends at the base of the biggest climb of the ride. I had no interest in arriving at the base of the climb exhausted, so about 6 miles from the end I said goodbye to the group and left the paceline. I knew all along I'd get dropped like a rock when we got to the big climbs, so my goal was to stay with the group until the park entrance. I essentially made it to that goal.

A couple of miles before the food stop at the park entrance I came across club member Gary, who had come to the same “too fast” conclusion a few miles later than I had.

We got to the food stop at mile 59 right as the rest of our group was leaving. The stop wasn't very well organized this year and had a huge line. The main gang decided to skip it. Not me. I was hungry and couldn't afford to bypass a main feeding stop, especially with a 2-hour climb about to begin.

Once fed Gary and I took off together for the park. Now was the true test. It's pretty easy for the first few miles to Longmire. Then it starts to kick up. Surprisingly, I felt pretty good. The slope is not too steep, about 5 or 6%. I was able to get into a very steady rhythm and climbed at 9-11mph for the entire climb. Gary was locked in right next to me, and we had a great conversation which made the climb go faster. Before we knew it the two hours had passed and we were at the top. The climb was a little shorter this year than normal because of construction at Paradise – the route turned off a few miles below Paradise on the Ohanapecosh Road.

Ah, now the first big descent, about 10 miles of sweet downhill with some nice sweeping corners. It can also be dangerous because areas of sun and shade can hide obstacles like rocks that have fallen off the roadside cliffs. But we didn't encounter any of those this year and were soon at the next food stop at mile 88.

After a 4-mile climb up Backbone Ridge there's another big descent down Stevens Canyon to the Ohanapecosh park gate. Then a left turn onto Highway 123 and the dreaded 10-mile climb to Cayuse Pass. It's dreaded because you've already ridden 100 miles by the time you get to the base of it. Also you get there in mid-afternoon so it can be bloody hot, and the climb is the steepest of the route at 8% or so. It feels endless. And monotonous. At least this year the monotony was broken up by sections of gravel roadway. The road washed out in a huge storm in 2006 that did major damage to the park. The highway was closed for months afterward and they are still repairing it. But like the Paradise climb, Cayuse felt a lot easier then the previous times I've ridden RAMROD. Slower though because of the steeper grade – we did about 7-8mph most of the way.

From the summit of Cayuse Pass at 4694' it's a fun 8-mile descent. The road used to be poor, but it has been repaved since last time I rode it and was fantastic today. 36-38 mph all the way down. And at the bottom is the turnoff to the last food stop at mile 118. The hardest work was over! At the food stop we caught up with Brian, another Eastgate rider and decided to team up for the remainder of the ride.

Even though the climbing was all done, there were still 35 miles to go before we were done. And the legendary headwind was present the whole way. We were all tired and we were stiff after the food stop. I thought we might go fairly slowly. But Brian immediately cranked it up to 23mph. It's slightly downhill the whole way back to Enumclaw, but with the headwind it can still be work. But the three of us had a wonderful paceline going and we made pretty quick work of the 35 miles. Only 1.5 hours. Toward the end the route goes down a sweet technical descent through a forest for a couple of miles and then spills out into farmland for the last 4 miles or so. We were all pretty done, but we managed to hook onto a tandem and drafted them the rest of the way to the finish.

Even this morning I wasn't sure if I would complete the ride. But it turned out I felt far more comfortable on the whole ride than I have before. This is the first time I've done RAMROD since I started bike commuting to work regularly (in December 2005). It's also the first time since discovering the benefit of lots of early-season miles. And I also did some serious carbo loading both Tuesday and Wednesday nights with huge plates of spaghetti. One or more of those factors contributed to a much easier ride. I still can't say I “enjoyed” RAMROD, but I survived it so much better than before that I'm quite satisfied. And like after STP, I feel pretty normal tonight other than leg fatigue when I walk down stairs.

IN 2003 with a motley crew and a lot of waiting, we had 13:30 elapsed time and roughly 9:30 rolling time.

In 2005 I rode it (solo) in 12:45 elapsed time and 9:45 riding time for a 15.8mph average speed.

This year I had an elapsed time of 10:30, riding time of 8:45 and average riding speed of 17.02mph.

13:30, 12:45, 10:30. There's a trend! If I keep riding RAMROD eventually it won't take me any time at all!

By the way: those faster riders in my club? They did the Paradise climb at 12-14mph and finished the whole ride with an elapsed time of 9:00. I'm very glad I didn't try to keep up with that.